Ezekiel 29:1 In the tenth year, in the tenth month, on the twelfth day of the month, the word of the Lord came to me: 2 “Son of man, set your face against Pharaoh king of Egypt, and prophesy against him and against all Egypt; 3 speak, and say, Thus says the Lord God:
“Behold, I am against you, Pharaoh king of Egypt, the great dragon that lies in the midst of his streams, that says, ‘My Nile is my own; I made it for myself.’
4 I will put hooks in your jaws, and make the fish of your streams stick to your scales; and I will draw you up out of the midst of your streams, with all the fish of your streams that stick to your scales. 5 And I will cast you out into the wilderness, you and all the fish of your streams; you shall fall on the open field, and not be brought together or gathered. To the beasts of the earth and to the birds of the heavens I give you as food.
6 Then all the inhabitants of Egypt shall know that I am the Lord.
“Because you have been a staff of reed to the house of Israel, 7 when they grasped you with the hand, you broke and tore all their shoulders; and when they leaned on you, you broke and made all their loins to shake.
One of the great empires in the book of history - and the Bible - has been Egypt. Not only was Israel in bondage there; they kept wanting to go back there. This was one of the rare times that Egypt was greatly humbled by other empires. Why the judgment on Egypt? First, they say themselves as self-created; the Pharoahs saw themselves as gods. They gloried in the Nile with all its branches, as if they had made it themselves. Beyond that was the way that Egypt had dealt with Israel - using their land as a battlefield with other empires, but even more so in making promises to help Israel as they fought these empires, then leaving them high and dry. God was now going to exile Egypt, leaving them high and dry away from their precious Nile.
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